James Blake is preparing to release his fifth album Friends That Break Your Heart, and today he’s shared the album’s second single, “Life Is Not the Same.” As the follow-up to June’s “Say What You Will,” this new song is filled with hurt and longing, maybe a bit of resentment. “I can only be what I am,” goes one line that gets warbled before the chorus.
“Life Is Not the Same” is a collaboration with producers Take a Daytrip, who recently co-produced the Lil Nas X track “Industry Baby” featuring Jack Harlow. Blake sings about a tarnished relationship, one that he was fully wrapped up in: “I wore your favorite clothes / I said the things you’d say / But that was yesterday.” The chorus details the long distance that pulls at the threads of a relationship. It’s accompanied with recorded ocean waves as Blake powerfully sings, “Life is not the same if we’re miles away.”
Later, it seems that this other person was more of an antagonist than a disconnected partner. The waves turn vicious, the metaphor strengthened. “We both swam out to sea / You lost me willingly.” On “Life Is Not the Same,” Blake and Take a Daytrip capture the death of a relationship and the haunting feelings that linger.
Listen to it below, and pre-order Friends That Break Your Heart here.
